Intelligence of Errors

Intelligence of Errors—the Croatian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition—the Venice Biennale, is an artistic and research-based project dedicated to investigating ways in which errors in spatial design and policy can be utilized as resources for learning and making new worlds. The project builds on the insight that identification of one's own errors is the key prerequisite for the development of collective intelligence systems within non-ideal and complex conditions. Errors in the context of this project are seen as conditions created by human action or inaction, which manifest themselves within our environment. But instead of merely treating errors as problems to be fixed, Intelligence of Errors invites a different approach, one that stays with the error, and learns from it. 

Intelligence of Errors is inspired by and developed from Error Harvest—an educational tool for designers of complex systems under non-ideal conditions. It is a flexible approach whose components and procedures can be reconfigured to suit different contexts and goals. Rather than viewing identified errors solely as problems to be solved, Error Harvest teaches us to treat them as sources of unique insight regarding the world’s resistance to our design plans, and to explore their potential for collective benefit.

While Intelligence of Errors pursues a planetary-scale examination and development of a diverse set of design strategies, its iteration in Venice is distinctly rooted in Croatian phenomena and shaped by local knowledge derived from architectural practices within the Croatian context. Nevertheless, at the heart of the project lies the proposition that each locality—however delineated—contains both its own idiosyncratic errors and those that, despite differences in appearance, recur across various contexts. Accordingly, Intelligence of Errors is an invitation for everyone to engage with ideas on new configurations of errors, their potential for collectively beneficial use, and the creation of new iterations of this project.

During the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, Intelligence of Errors will be presented through the spatial manifestation of the Institute of Errors—the project’s primary organizing Imaginarium. The Institute of Errors is designed as a nomadic pop-up research and design institution dedicated to examining and utilizing spatial errors towards the collective good. It serves as the central invitation to researchers, architects, designers, planners, hackers, maintenance experts, scientists, engineers, feral makers, rural innovators, underground strategists, and all others who wish to contribute to our shared understanding and imaginative use of errors. 

Welcoming visitors to its mobile and travelling form, it will showcase both the Repository of Errors and three Imaginariums as key components of investigating and designing with errors.

The “Repository of Errors” is a newly established analogue and digital research archive focused on identifying and classifying spatial errors into three main categories of Products, Resources, and Surplus. While the initial focus of the Repository, presented in the Institute, lies within the territory of Croatia, it is envisioned as a growing, open-ended platform with international reach.

The three Imaginariums presented in the Institute offer speculative design responses to selected phenomena from each error family, focusing on issues particular to Croatia, but applicable on a broader scale. “Wicked Product” harvests the ingenuity of illegal vacation settlements to rethink tourist infrastructure; “Resource Freezone” reimagines abandoned brownfield sites as experimental zones for collective use; and “Layering Surplus” utilizes waste and excess as a material for creating new layers of climate-resilient habitation. By offering novel speculative design methods that harvest the identified errors, the Imaginariums provide alternative approaches to architecture and urban planning which position themselves critically against the currently observed top-down, inflexible, and non-inclusive urban planning practices.

Commissioner: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia / Curator: Ida Križaj Leko / Exhibitors: Institute of Errors—Ana Boljar, Jana Čulek, Ida Križaj Leko, Marino Krstačić—Furić, Ana Tomić, Iva Peručić, Marko-Luka Zubčić / Organisation: Croatian Architects’ Association (CAA.